By Morenike Taiwo

Welcome back to the second part of the diversified unity in Montessori education, a continuation of the first edition where we laid foundation for this continuation. Please enjoy this and feel free to give us your feedback. Happy reading.

THE ROLE OF THE PREPARED ADULT:

The prepared adult is a child observer. She is mindful of her movement within the environment, thereby maintaining an environment that allows the child full attention, concentration, and coordination. She is aware that the child between the ages of 3-6 is a spontaneous observer of the environment.

The child's absorbent mind takes in every single detail of what he sees, hears, tastes, smells, and touches with the use of the child's sensory organs. She observes that he is happy when he is concentrating and there is no deviation or any form of distraction in the way of his learning.

She is a model to the child on how to listen and speak with confidence, empathy, patience, respect, love, kindness and understanding. She respects the child and share love and knowledge with the child without prejudice. She shares the gift of her presence with the child by carefully observing the work of the child daily, she observes how the child adapts to work and social life in the environment.

It is her responsibility to know the need of every child and figure out how she can be of support to the child's all-round development - academically, psychologically, and socially.

THE PREPARED ENVIRONMENT IN PERSPECTIVE:

In the prepared environment, the adult must prepare the environment in a specific way for the use of the child. The environment must be prepared in an orderly and consistent way because the child of ages 3-6 is in a sensitive period of order, movement, language, and refinement of sensory perception. The child is learning to be orderly, so if there is no order or specific and consistent arrangement in the environment, the child cannot attain normalization in the prepared environment.

The order in which the chairs, tables, shelves and other furniture and materials arranged should be consistent, child specific and within the reach of the child without help from the adult in the environment. Things should be taken out of the way not to distort the movement of the child. The environment should be spacious and free of unused item.

The adult after preparing this clean and safe environment for the use of the child must be willing to release it with love for the child's uninterrupted work. No distractions that could lead to deviation.

The adult in the prepared environment works tirelessly at examining her own internal biases and prejudices without being judgmental. The consciousness of working on herself prepares her for the big work of conveying stories and information about any of the rich and diverse human cultures with care, near accuracy, respect, and compassion.

The absorbent mind of the child is highly impressionable. The adult working with the ages 3-6 child is saddled with the important task of sharing stories that give a well-grounded perception of any culture, language, religion, people, and place that the child wishes to know more about.

THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY:

All over the world, there is limited or inaccurate understanding of what defines a person, place, religion, culture, or group of people who look, speak, or do things differently from us. This is the danger inherent in seeing things from just one perception which ends up making one a biased and judgmental individual. This is the danger of a single story.

This attitude of being one sided can rob other individuals of their dignity, value, and self-worth. Such a harmful, one-sided view causes us to live a stereotype life.

Humanity can commonly benefit when everyone makes a sincere effort to explore and discover more about human beings in different context; the way of life of other people, how they live, learn, eat, work, play, worship, speak or organize their social and cultural structures in their communities and societies.

Dr. Maria Montessori said, and I quote "culture and education have no bounds or limits; now man is in a phase in which he must decide for himself how far he can proceed in the culture that belongs to the whole humanity".

COMMUNITY OF THE CHILD:

The child that is attaining normalization through attention, concentration and coordination adapts easily to everything around him. Working and having contact with others. This social sense is a natural gift that allows for easy communication among individuals filled with love, kindness, empathy, and compassion.

The adult does not force this upon the child. It comes naturally and it is normal for the child to come together as a community of children in the prepared environment. Dr. Maria Montessori referred to this coming together of children as "a society by cohesion".

COMMUNITY BUILDING BY CHILDREN:

P.K. Hallinan said and I quote "a rainbow of friends is a dream we can share where everyone is treated with kindness and care".

Children in the community help each other out of love and kindness. They respect and show interest in each other. They offer moral and physical support among themselves in difficult times. They work and cohabit in harmony with others and the environment. They become a patient observer of nature. They appreciate the beauty of order. They value all work. Freedom and discipline go hand in hand. Individual characters are formed. Working together for the common good of the community they are part of by eating, laughing, singing, and playing together. The child teaches us that building this great community is living more in the moment.

Mimi Kashan, author of "The Little Book of Courageous Living", wrote and I quote "true dialogue can only happen if I enter the conversation willing to be changed by it. If I am unwilling to change, to be affected sufficiently, to consider options new to me, on what grounds am I expecting the other person to change?".

In conclusion of this two-part article on Diversified Unity in Montessori Education, I hope that every parent, guardian, and other adults in every child's life who has shown the courage to engage in this conversation with me, recognizes the need to talk, reflect and act now to help build a world that will accept that every human being exists only because of other human beings, and that human beings are inter-dependent on each other. Dr. Maria Montessori referred to this as "Human Solidarity".